First and foremost – Happy Mothers Day to our mums in NZ! As you will read below we have been away camping with no power, phones or internet (horror) hence no phone call this year.
What a glorious weekend of sunshine! I can’t believe I can write that line! The weather was absolutely beautiful for our camping weekend away in the Forest of Dean. To be truthful I believe the site was near (not in) the forest as there weren’t any towering groves of forest like growth anywhere near our tents. We went with a bunch of my work mates and had a great time stretched out in the sun, laughter around the campfire, lots of food, drink, good company and burnt marshmallows thrown in too.
We all descended on the campsite on Friday night when it was still light so we could get our tents up, fire going and get well and truly relaxed before the sun started to go down. For only the second time putting our tent up I was quite impressed as to how easy it was (read – Steve did all the work as I had no idea!). Around 10pm we noticed lightning flashes in the sky coming from all directions. However we got the full benefit of the spectacular flashes but no rain. It was a great sight.
Saturday morning I was up early as usual (not hard to do when the birds start singing at 4.30am). I was up, showered and ready for a walk, so off I went with a fellow work mate for a tour around the area to find some bread and milk. It turned out we ended up getting it from the campsite Cafe. I was really keen to go for a canoe as I had heard that it is a “must do” in the area. The others were all up for some mountain biking. Personally I am pretty slack on a bike and as it turned out one of my mates had a rather nasty spill which left her in pain for the rest of the weekend. Meanwhile, Steve and I had decided to go to a local canoe hire place at Symonds Yat. For 26 quid you get all your kit for a half day canoe down the river. Thankfully this also includes a lift up river to a launch point and you canoe back down to the hire place. I think it was about a 12 mile canoe trip in which they give you clear instructions and about 4 hours to do it in. The current was reasonably strong so unless you are a very strong canoeist taking the option of a lift up river is a must do. The instructions they provide for navigating the river make it worth going through a company that is experienced with the river themselves. The driver went through how to deal with a couple of key problem areas. Of particular note was a part of the river where some young ladies the week prior had managed to wrap their canoe around one of the bridge pillars that we pass under. See below!
That evening as we all wandered back to the campsite it was another night of campfire and laughs. However, as it was the last night and we were running low on wood anything that was able to burn was tossed on. Occassionally it was tossed on even if there was only reasonable chance of it burning. Thankfully our tents were required for the remainder of the night!
On our last day Steve and I decided to have breakfast at the campsite cafe. It was great to sit in the sunshine and not have to worry about the washing up. Finally, we all took in as much sun as we could before packing up and heading off on our own way ready to return to work tomorrow. Steve and I took a detour home through Ross on Wye which is a lovely town (reminds me of Ledbury). Then we stopped at the Royal Hotel for a drink sitting on the veranda overlooking the valley with the river running through and the occassional brilliant yellow fields. We then drove through the Wye Valley ending up at the Tintern Abbey for an ice cream along with every other man, woman and child in the area!
Anyway here are a last few shots of this weekends trip.